


A Worthwhile Chance

by Huggle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Hurt Castiel, Protective Bobby Singer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6647071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby isn't sure if he should be doing this with Castiel.  It's bound to end badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Worthwhile Chance

Bobby doesn’t take much to do with irony. Never saw the need for it, except for some people who had to prove they were smarter than everybody else by pointing at the goddamn obvious and saying, “That’s ironic.”

But if he did take to do with it, he would have to admit, this is ... well. Pretty goddamn ironic.

Castiel is still asleep. He’s stretched out beside Bobby, head turned into the hunter’s shoulder, all pale skin and a shock of dark hair to top it off. The rough woollen blanket starts at his hips, so there’s not so much on display as Bobby could do with, but it’s not like Castiel’s up for anything right now anyway.

The scar is fading slowly. It’s not the angry red it was two hours ago, and it’s not the gaping glowing wound it was an hour before that, when Castiel just appeared in Bobby’s kitchen and went right down to his knees.

After all this time, Bobby knows the mark of an angel-killing blade when he sees one, and it both hurts and makes him angry that Castiel was in trouble and he wasn’t there to help. Didn’t even know about it. 

If Castiel had gotten killed, would he have even known what happened? Would he have just been left waiting? For an angel that was never going to show up again.

And there’s the irony. He spent months hating Castiel. Trying to figure him out. Angels are busy creatures. Children of God, celestial warriors, not to be crossed or treated with anything less than a terrified sense of respect. Why would one fight its way into Hell to rescue a human? 

And when he found out about Castiel’s threat – just words, he knows that now, and who hasn’t tried threatening, yelling, cajoling or plain old bribery to get Dean Winchester to toe the fucking line – he hated him even more. Enough to start looking on the sly for ways to kill an angel.

Now he knows such ways exist, and he’s glad he didn’t before. Because he read Dean and Cas wrong, and if he’d hurt a hair on the angel’s head, he and Dean would have had serious problems. Now the thought that he even entertained the idea makes him kind of sick.

Castiel stirs uneasily, and Bobby strokes lightly down his chest, hushing him with quiet soothing sounds. It works and Castiel descends once more into slumber.

This. Bobby knows this is the worst idea since the dawn of time. He can’t let himself get fooled by this. He looks at Cas like this and sees a guy young enough to be his son. Vulnerable. Like Dean and Sam. Lost, abandoned by a father he’s never really had a chance to know. A father he was pinning all his hopes on. Except Dean and Sam have each other, always have, but Cas only has Cas. His brothers are assholes, trying to catch or kill him at every turn.

Sometimes when Cas is awake, that stunning fragility is still there. Like when he tried to figure out how to use the coffee grinder. Or took a few minutes to realise Dean was actually kidding when he said the missionary position was something devout humans did during prayer. (Bobby suspects Jimmy surfaces more often now, probably to help Cas know when Dean is taking the piss out of him.)

And then sometimes, there’s no mistaking what Castiel is. The unbridled power he exerts, still, even with half or more of his Grace withered away. Sometimes, the angel takes a step and Bobby expects to feel the ground tremble. 

But despite that force of Heaven that still runs through Castiel, despite the determination for all of them to still be standing when this is over, Bobby knows there are no happy endings to the stories of anyone involved with the Winchesters.

Ellen and Jo are gone. John too, all three long before their time. Before this is done, Bobby knows he’ll probably lose either Sam or Dean, although with those two dead is one thing. Staying dead is another, but Bobby would rather not go through that again, thank you very much.

Castiel has proven he has the same luck, if you could call it that. Death has a hard time holding on to him. All the same, Bobby can feel it’s cold hand clutching at them, grasping to take hold again of what was so nearly in its power.

He doesn’t need any more heartache, and he doesn’t know when hating Castiel turned into this.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he whispers. He knows that. Knows this is nothing more than the pointless need of a stupid old man, screwing around with a younger man playing host to an angel that could be older than existence.

Castiel opens his eyes, and reaches up to cup Bobby’s face. “Do you fear, Bobby?”

Bobby smiles. No point in lying to an Angel of the Lord, especially not one in his bed. “Always.”

“As do I. Sam told me fear for something is a result of loving it. That is reason enough why we _should_ be doing this.”

Only Sam Winchester would give that kind of advice to an angel. Boy’s got his head screwed on right. 

“Who am I to disagree with an angel?” he says, and lays down to tug Castiel over and against him, so he can hold him tight and hope that Sam’s the one who’s right in the end.


End file.
